


You, Me, and Bambino Makes Three

by monobuu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Am I doing this right?, Angst, Booty Calls, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Fluff, Fuckbuddies, Genderswap, Happy Ending, He's sort of a dick, Idiots in Love, Miscommunication, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Oops, Patented Steve Rogers Drama, Pregnancy, Rhodey Is a Good Bro, Sort Of, Swearing, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Unplanned Pregnancy, and gets no chance to redeem himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22472071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monobuu/pseuds/monobuu
Summary: Toni has a perfectly functional booty-call/fuckbuddie relationship going on with the love of her life, it's totally fine, nothing could possibly go wrong.Five times Toni has an argument and one time she has... another argument.Tony Stark Bingo FillSquare: K2 - Doctor's AppointmentCard: 3087
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 862





	You, Me, and Bambino Makes Three

**Author's Note:**

> This author does indeed have a womb, but has never used it to bake a tiny human, so. 
> 
> Many thanks to @MarvelousMenagerie for being my beta.

**1.**

“This is bullshit,” Toni whispered to herself.

“How long does it take you to pee on a stick?” came Rhodey’s voice from the other side of the door.

Toni raised her head and repeated, louder, “This is bullshit.”

“What is?” Rhodey asked, patient as ever.

And Toni didn’t have an answer.

All of it. Everything. That fundraiser two years ago when the whole fiasco started was bullshit. The resulting relationship, if you could call booty calls a relationship, had been bullshit. The flowers and the island getaways and his stupid blue eyes were all bullshit. This stick was bullshit and the little plus sign that had lit up on the past  _ three _ she’d peed on was-

_ Potentially the best thing ever- _

Bull. Shit.

“Tones, come on,” Rhodey said, and Toni realized she’d been death glaring the little test in her hand for approximately long enough for her platypus to start worrying.

She pulled up her pants, flushed the toilet and swung the door open abruptly to find Rhodey standing there, bewildered and a bit concerned.

“So?” he asked. “Is there a bun in the oven?”

“See for yourself,” Toni said, holding up the stick.

“I’m not touching your pee stick, Toni,” Rhodey said firmly. “Just tell me the verdict.”

Toni turned and tossed the test into the little trash bin that sat next to the toilet. It joined the other two with a soft  _ thunk. _

“There is indeed a bun in the oven,” Toni said, then made a face. “Why is that a thing we say? Ugh.”

She pushed past Rhodey, pointedly not looking at his shocked expression as she made her way toward her desk. She’d used the bathroom in her workshop for the tests, so it was easy enough to push those three little devilish plush signs to the back of her mind and focus on something more important.

_ Like what you’re going to tell him? _

No. Like fixing the articulation joint of the newest deep sea exploration robot she’d been working on for roughly five months now. Finding out what the depths of the world’s oceans had to offer was almost as fascinating as space exploration, and both were definitely more interesting than what, exactly, was going on in her uterus at the moment.

“You need to make a doctor’s appointment,” Rhodey said behind her.

“I have more important things to do,” Toni said in response, ignoring his suggestion.

“And then you need to tell him,” Rhodey continued, ignoring  _ her, _ which, rude.

“Tell who?” Toni asked, unable to help herself.

“The baker,” Rhodey said in that tone of voice that said he was attempting to annoy her on purpose.

“Um, technically I’m the baker, sugarbear,” Toni responded. “I’m the one gestating the damn thing, after all.”

“James. Buchanan. Barnes,” Rhodey said pointedly. “You need to tell him.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Toni tutted, pushing the plans for the articulation joint aside and opening something else. She wasn’t in the right state of mind for that project. She could just work on DUM-E’s treads and how he kept managing to wear them down. “You don’t know whose it is.”

“Please,” Rhodey scoffed.

“My bedroom is basically a revolving door of high quality dick, Rhodes,” Toni said with a leer and a raised eyebrow.

“So says TMZ,” Rhodey agreed easily. “But we both know TMZ is full of shit and the only one revolving your door is Barnes.”

_ Try again. _

“You know how many guys I’ve been with in the past week alone?” Toni asked haughtily, hands on hips.

“Yeah. Exactly zero,” Rhodey said flatly.

_ Damnit. _

“I took that intern home from the expo three weeks ago,” Toni argued, grasping for anything.

“Okay, one, that kid was like 12, so ew,” Rhodey said. “And two, you took him out for ice cream, not debauchery.”

“The biker who crashed the conference last month,” Toni threw out.

“Was as gay as they come,” Rhodey said smugly. “Even my gaydar caught that.”

“Well I had a lovely time with that-”

“If you’re talking about that dude Pepper had fired from accounting, save it. Murdock was at the bar he was drowning his sorrows in and, I quote, ‘Even a blind man could tell he was obliterated.’”

“Are you-” Toni spun around, narrowing her eyes at her best friend. “What’s the opposite of slut-shaming?”

“Yes,” Rhodey said. “I am accusing you of being boring and monogamous and hopelessly in love with a singular person who apparently put a baby in you and who deserves to know he’s going to be a father.”

Well. There wasn’t much Toni could say to that, now was there. She spun back around in her chair and blew up the hologram of DUM-E’s wheels.

“He’s in France right now,” Toni said.

“That’s what they invented telephones for,” Rhodey said.

“Don’t you think this is the kind of thing to be done face to face?”

“That’s what they invented  _ private jets _ for,” Rhodey said more emphatically.

“I’ll think about it.”

**2.**

“You haven’t told him yet,” Rhodey said.

Toni turned this way and that in her gorgeous new gown, gazing at herself in the cheap mirror the doctor’s office had on the wall and pressing the paper monstrosity against her flat stomach. She tried to imagine what it’d look like as she began to grow and couldn’t quite grasp the image.

“Why would you say that?” she said instead, fiddling idly with the various items on the counter and pointedly not looking at him. Rhodey could read her like a book, had mastered that talent during their years at MIT, and she didn’t need him to actually see the guilty proof of his accusation shining through her eyes.

Stupid eyes. Where were her sunglasses when she needed them?

“Because if you had, he would be here instead of me,” Rhodey said, and she could hear the disappointment in his tone without even having to see his frown.

“Fat chance,” Toni said, trying to steer the conversation away from that particular gem. “Men don’t come to these types of appointments.”

“Then why am  _ I _ here?”

Toni abandoned her fidgeting and hopped up onto the table, shivering only slightly as her bare ass hit the leather. She smiled charmingly in Rhodey’s direction.

“Moral support,” she said easily. “If I’ve gotta get poked in the squishy bits, I need someone to complain to about it.”

Rhodey gave her a  _ look. _

“Also, if my morning sickness pops up in the afternoon again, I’m gonna need you to hold back my hair.”

“Is there a reason  _ why _ you won’t tell him?” Rhodey asked then, ignoring Toni’s attempt at humor (because hurling your guts out was  _ hilarious _ ).

Toni looked to the door, praying to whichever god could hear her that the doctor would walk in and save her from having to answer that loaded question. Because the answer wasn’t a simple one, and Toni wasn’t exactly excited at the prospect of digging around in her plethora of trust issues to pin down exactly which ones applied to this particular clusterfuck.

“Sure there is,” Toni said, listening to the telltale  _ click-click  _ of heels on the floor.

“Gonna share with the class?” Rhodey prodded, and Toni gave him a big, shit-eating grin as the doctor walked in.

**3.**

“Toni.”

“Oh, my god,” Toni grumbled as Pepper gave her a  _ look  _ from the doorway to Toni’s office. “Did Rhodey rope you into this? That’s a low blow.”

“Toni,” Pepper repeated, stepping inside and closing the door. “I shouldn’t have to tell you-”

“I’m pregnant, Potts, I’m  _ allowed _ to eat an entire pizza if-”

“That’s not what I came to talk about, and you know it.”

“Well, I’m still thinking!” Toni said hurriedly, waving a slice around as she hunched over her box of delicious, possibly disgusting to anybody who thought anchovies and pineapple were abominations, pie. “And I’ve been fielding that glare since 2012, Pep, it doesn’t work on me anymore.”

“He’s been back from France since last week,” Pepper said firmly, and of course Rhodey had blabbed about Toni’s excuse because he was the worst. “Talk to him.”

“I talked to him yesterday,” Toni said through another bite of pizza, and that wasn’t even a lie.

The conversation had been over the phone, had taken around six minutes and had included an apology from James for taking so long to call (jet lag, am I right?), an invitation to dinner Saturday night (a thinly veiled offer for a long night of enthusiastic sex), and a polite decline on Toni’s part (no, thanks, I’d rather not risk you finding out I’m carrying your child while you’re boning me, bye~).

James had brushed it off. No big deal. Their schedules didn’t always line up perfectly.

So what if it had been over two months since they’d last seen each other? So what if Toni spent most nights now that she knew about her little bambino curled up and hugging a pillow that she definitely wasn’t pretending was a warm body? So what if she missed the smell of his skin like a physical ache?

If he didn’t get it from her, he’d seek it somewhere else. That had been the deal since the very beginning. So what if she hadn’t slept with a single person since James? It didn’t matter.

“And?” Pepper prompted, pulling Toni out of her misery.

“And it doesn’t matter,” Toni said.

**4.**

“You’re starting to show.”

“Are you calling me fat?” Toni asked, turning around to glare. She’d been wearing increasingly loose-fitting clothing, but there was only so far she could take it and still remain appropriately fashion-forward for someone of her social status. In her estimation she had about another month, maybe a month and a half, until the paps caught on and outed her.

“Is that what I said?” Rhodey asked, not phased in the least by her temper. Her moods had been more mercurial as of late, but Rhodey had seemingly little trouble taking them in stride, especially when he was trying to prove a point.

Toni didn’t deign to answer. She’d begged off a few more galas and other social events than was normal, even for her. She was pretty certain the only reason Pepper let her get away with it was specifically because they hadn’t broken the news to anyone yet.

“You won’t be able to hide it forever,” he continued. “I’m honestly surprised no one’s figured it out yet.”

“Pepper will deal with that when it happens,” Toni said easily. They were in Toni’s kitchen and Toni was currently making her way through two sandwiches that contained a truly frightening number of pickles in between cheese and some sort of meat.

“And that’s how you want Barnes to find out?” Rhodey pushed. “In the tabloids?”

“It’s how everyone else will find out,” Toni offered.

“Toni,” Rhodey sighed. “Help me understand. Why don’t you want to tell him?”

“Because he’s not going to care,” Toni said, mumbling through a stray pickle.

“You don’t know that,” Rhodey protested.

But she did. Their relationship wasn’t a relationship. It was sex whenever they happened to be in the same country. James traveled so much for his job that even if they’d wanted something more than that, it would’ve been near impossible. So they fucked when he was in town, went out to eat greasy hamburgers at fuck-thirty in the morning, and then desacrated a fast-food bathroom. They had raucous hotel sex when Toni had a layover in London during one of James’s conferences. Made slow, sweet love whenever their paths crossed in Rome, because the atmosphere was just too romantic for anything else.

Then they didn’t see each other for a few weeks or a month and Toni would just go to sleep lonely until their schedules lined up again. The tabloids fucking loved speculating on whether they were currently  _ on  _ or  _ off,  _ and the term ‘fuckbuddies’ had been used liberally by some of the not-so-gentle celebrity blogs _.  _ Right now they were definitely  _ off. _

So yeah. They fucked sometimes and it was great, and when they were parted for months at a time, it was okay, because all they had was sex. Nothing even remotely close to commitment.

Toni knew that, she did. And she was fine with it,  _ she was. _

But that didn’t mean she wanted him to say it to her face, point blank:  _ Thanks but no thanks. _

She’d rather just not tell him.

That way, she didn’t have to listen to him tell her  _ ‘no.’ _

**5.**

“What. The. Fuck.”

Toni frowned, then winced, then silently prayed for the ground to just open up and swallow her whole already, because  _ really?  _ Three months of successfully keeping her situation out of the papers, virtual meetings so she didn’t have to risk suddenly running for the trash can because morning sickness was a  _ bitch _ , artfully arranging her wardrobe to high even the slightest change in her figure and  _ this _ was how it all ended? Replacing a shirt she’d spilled coffee on in the privacy of  _ her own goddamn office _ and this fucker walks in on her?

“What the actual fuck, Stark?”

Honestly, fuck Steve Rogers.

“What are you doing in my office, Rogers?” Toni asked, choosing to ignore Steve’s shock as she pulled her shirt on over her camisole. Maybe if she ignored it hard enough, he would go away.

“Are you pregnant?” he demanded.

Well so much for ignoring the problem into oblivion. She tied the shirt just under the second to last button, making it puff out and hide the slight bump she was sporting beneath it, but it was all too late, because Steve’s eyes were stuck on her middle, wide and shocked and angry.

“What do you want?” Toni asked again, determined.

Steve was a makeup artist, despite the fact that he looked like he was America’s Next Top Model, and while he occasionally did makeup for press conferences, he mostly did red carpet and other appearances for a base of well-known clients. Toni had hired him in a pinch, twice, but that was it. Which meant there was very little reason for Steve to be in Stark Tower, and even less reason for him to have made it past both security  _ and _ Pepper.

Pepper.

“I’m here because my best friend is holed up in his apartment wondering why you won’t take his calls,” Steve said, acid dripping from his tone.

“Dammit,” Toni muttered. She’d only sent James to voicemail a couple times. Four. Maybe ten. Seventeen at the absolute most.

“But I think I’m starting to see the whole picture now,” Steve continued.

“You don’t see shit,” Toni argued, sitting down behind her desk and, hopefully, hiding the incriminating evidence behind a pile of paperwork so Steve would  _ stop fucking staring. _

She didn’t know why Steve got under her skin so much – all they ever did was argue. James seemed to think it was hilarious, mostly, Toni was convinced, because it was amusing to watch a tiny slip of a woman scream herself hoarse arguing with the human embodiment of a brick wall over shit like  _ the correct way to hold chopsticks, you fucking heathen. _

The blame was probably an even 50-50 at this point.

“Do you even know who it belongs to?” Steve snapped, venomous.

Okay. Make that 70-30, because that was  _ low. _ Even for Steve fucking Rogers.

_ Isn’t that what you want him to think? _

Toni screwed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them to glare at the still-fuming Steve. She wanted to punch that stupid, holier-than-thou look right off his face, and if James hadn’t meant so much to her, she might have, consequences be damned.

“Contrary to popular belief,” Toni gritted out. “What I do with my uterus is none of your fucking business.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no,’” Steve said calmly, though his jaw clenched visibly as he gave her a long, judgmental once-over. It was like his face couldn’t decide which expression to show, fighting between absolute outrage and a smug sort of  _ ‘I knew it’  _ that crawled up Toni’s spine like a daddy long legs on crack.

“Take it however you want,” Toni said.

“End it,” Steve said abruptly and Toni’s mind screeched to an absolute standstill.

_ What.  _

Toni’s heart was threatening to beat out of her chest, her anger crystalline clear and ready to explode if he even tried to imply-

“What?” Tony said slowly.

“Whatever this thing you have with Bucky is,” Steve clarified, seemingly unaware of how wrongly his comment had been interpreted, how Toni’s rage bubbled up from irritation to full blown incandescence. “End it. Now. Or so help me, I’ll-”

“You’ll what,” Tony said carefully, standing up from her desk and leaning forward onto it. There was no way Toni would ever be able to tower over someone like Steve without climbing on top of her desk to do it, but she hadn’t spent over a decade as CEO of a Fortune 500 company for nothing. It was a simple question, but the look on her face, her tone and body language, strung tight with anger and a hefty amount of ‘ _ come at me’  _ told Steve exactly where he stood at the moment. On thin fucking ice.

Part of what made their interactions so tragically catastrophic, Toni thought idly, is that Steve didn’t know when to back down.

“If you think for one second that you can use this kid to get money out of-” Steve started, but Tony didn’t let him get much further than that.

“You honestly think I need Barnes’s  _ money?” _ Toni asked incredulously. “I am a  _ billionaire _ , Rogers. He can’t give me anything I don’t already have.”

_ Well that is patently untrue. _

“Then end it,” Steve said firmly, heading for the door. He did that thing where he paused menacingly, looked back at her and said, “Or I will,” before walking out.

“Oh, I’d like to see you fucking try, Rogers.”

**+1**

“Detain him.”

Pepper squawked over the phone. “What?”

“That chihuahua who thinks he’s a goddamn pitbull that you let through my security, Pepper. Detain him.”

“Who are you- Steve?” Pepper asked, bewildered.

“ _ Yes! _ ” Toni growled.

“Toni, I can’t just detain someone,” Pepper protested. “I’m not-”

“Then just distract him for like ten minutes, Pep, that’s all I need.”

Toni hung up the phone and grabbed her coat, then dashed out the door to her office and ran for the stairwell.

A ten minute head start and a potentially horrifying lack of concern for traffic laws made sure that Toni arrived at James’s apartment before Steve did, which was all she needed. Her heart was going a mile a minute as she dashed through the doors to James’s building, flipping a silent salute to the doorman as he let her in. She rushed to the elevator, pressed the call button and glanced behind her, as if Steve were right on her heels.

There was no one in sight.

She climbed onto the elevator and as soon as the doors shut she sagged in relief.

Which was incredibly short lived as she realized what, exactly, she had come here to do.

“Oh, fuck me,” she muttered.

What the fuck was she doing here? What was her plan? Other than to beat Steve to the punch and deny him the satisfaction of telling James  _ “I told you so,”  _ what was she going to  _ do? _

No, seriously. What?  _ What? _

She hadn’t seen James in three months, had dodged almost every one of his calls after that first one, had lied about her schedule when she’d actually answered and for what? To put off the inevitable? It didn’t matter what he said. It didn’t  _ matter _ because she was Toni fucking Stark, she was rich and beautiful and any child she had would have every possible advantage in the world, even with a single mother. It didn’t matter if James turned her out, washed his hands of the whole thing. It _ didn’t matter. _

Except that it definitely, totally did.

To Toni. And that hollowed out empty space where her heart used to reside that was awkwardly shaped like a large, handsome dweeb named James.

The elevator doors dinged open and she tugged her coat around her middle, buttoning it up over her clothing and checking her silhouette in the mirrored walls of the elevator. Not noticeable if you weren’t strictly looking for it, at least she could keep one round in the chamber, so to speak, in case this all went to shit.

Tony made her way down the hall, paused for a few minutes at most as she tried to calm her dumb heart into something like normal, and then she knocked on the door. Waited. Waited some more. When a good thirty seconds had passed she tried again.

This time there was a noise from within the apartment, shuffling and a muffled voice.

“-ming, coming!” it said, getting closer, and Toni took a deep, bracing breath as the door swung open to reveal-

“What? Who the- Toni?”

Fucking James Buchanan Barnes. Shirtless, hair dripping wet, eyes wide with shock and, if Toni let herself go there, a tiny little bit of hope. But she didn’t, nope. She wasn’t going to gaze longingly into those blue death traps, she wasn’t going to lose herself in the deep sound of his voice when it rumbled out of his chest, and she certainly wasn’t going to fucking swoon over the fact that he looked just as soft as he ever had.

“No,” Toni said succinctly.

“No?” James repeated, confused and a bit skeptical.

“Go put a shirt on,” Toni said, pointing in the direction she knew his room to be.

“Two months of blowing me off and you come over here to boss me around?” James asked.

Soft, yes, but with an  _ edge. _ God she loved him.

_ Or, you know- fuck. Fuck. _

“You wanna do this in the hall? Be my guest,” Toni said, arms crossed, because she had an edge too, goddamnit.

James swung the door wide, gesturing for her to enter, and then, as she’d asked, headed off to his room. Toni shut the door and waited, and when he came back in, face set in a determined frown, he was at least wearing a shirt.

“There,” James said tensely. “Now you wanna explain why you’ve been ducking my calls?”

“Is there a rule somewhere that says I have to take them?” Toni asked, unable - physically unable - to let that kind of attitude slide. Their relationship had been starkly defined from the very beginning: open. Allowed to see others. No commitment. James didn’t get to be upset about that.

He could be upset about the other thing, and he definitely would be - when she got around to telling him. But not this.

Toni leaned against the island that separated the kitchen from the living room, not looking James directly in the eyes but facing his direction.

“I get it, Toni,” James said, anger still lacing his tone. “You’re busy. Whatever. But if you don’t wanna do this no more, then just tell me.”

“Is that what I said?” Toni argued back.

“You haven’t said  _ anything _ ,” James insisted, strained to the point of almost shouting. “That’s kinda the  _ point. _ ”

“Well quit putting words in my mouth.”

“Then just tell me what you want!” James shouted, anger and frustration finally bubbling over the edge. It might have been intimidating, his deep voice going loud and aggressive in an apartment, but he kept his distance, had a couch between him and her. She wasn’t entirely certain if he did it on purpose, but she had a sneaking feeling he did.

“I don’t know what I want!” Toni shouted back, slashing her hand through the air in front of her vehemently, because that was the truth. She had no idea. None. “I don’t- it’s complicated now and-.”

“What’s complicated?” James asked, voice still on the edge. “What could possibly be-”

“I’m pregnant,” Toni blurted.

“What?” James asked, and his voice had dropped to a whisper, barely audible. “What did you say?”

And honestly all Toni could think of was that stupid conversation she’d had with Rhodey back when she’d first found out. 

“Bun,” she said, pointing to her stomach. “Oven,” she continued, gesturing to her entire self. “I mean, I’m technically the oven and the baker, we’ve established that, because you are  _ not _ the baker, but yeah. It’s like, baking. Currently.”

_ Why are you like this? _

“You’re…” James trailed off. “Pregnant.” Almost like he didn’t believe her.

She undid the coat, dropped it on the floor and just took the oversized, blousy shirt off over her head so that all that was between her skin and the rest of the world was thin camisole over the slight bump. 

“Do you…who’s the father?” James asked.

Well. Certainly an improvement on Steve’s reaction. And here was her moment, the grand opening she’d been waiting for, laid out before her on the proverbial red carpet. Who’s the father?  _ You, James. You are. _ Tears of happiness, hugs and kisses, falling to the ground in a heap of overwhelming joy as they embraced around their little bambino. Soft music would play, or some hipster shit with soulful guitars and nonsense vocals. Confetti would fall softly from the ceiling, unexplained.  _ This was her moment. _

So of course she said, “Who the fuck do you think?”

James’s expression hardened. “I don’t know, Toni,” he said, tone firm. “It’s an open relationship, you could be fucking anyone.”

“Oh, anyone, huh?” Toni snapped, hands going to rest on her stomach without her realizing it. “Just a revolving door of dicks, is that it?”

Yes. She was aware of the hypocrisy, no need to mention it out loud.

“Yeah _ , _ Toni,” James hissed. “For all I know you coulda had a new one every night!”

“Well I didn’t!” Toni yelled, throwing her hands up in the air. “Not a single goddamn dick!”

“Not a single one?!” James asked, voice high and angry. 

“No!” Toni yelled, taking a step forward in an attempt to intimidate.

“Well why the fuck not!?” James yelled back, mirroring her step, hands coming down onto the back of the couch.

“Because I love you, asshole!” Toni screamed, marching up to the front side of the couch, opposite James, and pointing a finger directly in his face. “And I don’t give a single shit how many women you’ve slept with.”

“Yeah?” James asked menacingly, leaning forward. “Well listen up, sweetheart, because I’ve got news for you.”

“Go ahead,” Toni taunted, climbing up on top of the couch so that she was taller than him, throwing her arms out as she gestured for him to continue. Maybe she wouldn’t climb on top of a desk to loom over Rogers, but she sure as hell did not have any dignity left here - she would take any advantage she could get.

“All those gorgeous women in Paris and London, Rome and Tokyo and Sydney,” he said deeply, eyes narrowed as he looked up at her, crowding close to her legs. “The women at the conferences, the expos, the cafes and diners and those little hipster joints Sam likes to take us to,” he continued, his arms coming up, hands sliding up her calves to her thighs as he growled, low in his throat. He hitched her forward so that her knees hit the back of the couch and she had to grab his shoulders for balance.

“Yeah?” Toni asked, afraid to even assume where he was going with this, lest that stupid thing in her chest shatter into a million pieces on the floor and her little bambino was left with a useless husk of a human being as a mother.

“Didn’t want any of them,” James finished, voice dipping low, going soft. His eyes were the bluest they’d ever been in her memory and she wasn’t being a sap, she  _ wasn’t.  _ Those weren’t tears gathering in her eyes, it was the goddamn hormones.

“Why?” she asked, a near whisper as her hands scaled his shoulders, crept up his neck to cradle his jaw.

“Weren’t you,” James said easily, never taking his eyes off her.

The not-tears spilled over, running down her cheeks, and James tugged her that final distance. She fell into his arms as he dragged her over the back of the couch and closer, as close as he could get them, as he brought his mouth down to hers and swept her away with his warmth.

Toni could have stayed in that moment forever. When they broke apart, she gasped, unable to even think straight in the light of this new information, this new hope that had bloomed inside of her. James pressed his lips to her forehead, and she was still wrapped tightly in his embrace when she let out a tiny laugh.

“What?” James asked.

“You’re an idiot,” Toni said, but she was smiling.

James pulled back, and the affront on his face was clearly fake. “I’m an idiot?” he asked, hands retracting from his embrace so that he could move his left down to her stomach, hovering over the little bump gently. “Why didn’t you just tell me, doll?”

“I was scared,” Toni said without thinking. James frowned at her, free hand going to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear.

“Why?” he asked.

Because what if he’d said no? What if he’d taken one look at her little bump and slammed the door in her face? What if he’d never spoken to her again? What if he had someone else? What if, what if, what if. The possibilities had been endless and Toni’s natural inclination for self-destruction had gleefully gone through every single one of them in the past few months. Just the act of screaming her affection for James had left her emotionally vulnerable and raw enough that she felt she might need to sleep for a week to make up for it. 

Which, all things considered, is probably why she whispered, “There’s an alien inside me,” instead of anything even remotely emotional or self-aware.

James’s laughter was worth it, though.

“But it’s  _ our _ alien,” he said, bringing her into a tight embrace. “And we’ll raise it all nice and proper, with good morals and a strong sense of character, so that when they grow up they won’t rampage across the universe and snap half the population of every planet into tragic non-existence in an ill-guided attempt at preserving resources.”

Toni sighed into James’s chest, enjoying the sense of him all around her. She’d  _ missed him _ . Missed  _ this. _ And if she had anything to say about it, she wasn’t ever going to let it go again.

“You’ve been watching too much Syfy,” Toni said softly.

“Well you haven’t answered my phone calls in months, what else was I supposed to do?”

They’d be alright. Them and their little bambino.


End file.
